as he had without gaining a power of sturdy self-confidence in addition
to a certain amount of temperate contempt for spies of the law and all
their ways.

Against the peril inherent in this last, however, he was self-warned,
esteeming it the most fatal chink in the armour of the lawbreaker, this
disposition to underestimate the acumen of the police: far too many
promising young adventurers like himself were annually laid by the
heels in that snare of their own infatuate weaving. The mouse has every
right, if he likes, to despise the cat for a heavy-handed and
bloodthirsty beast, lacking wit and imagination, a creature of simple
force-majeure; but that mouse will not advisedly swagger in cat-haunted
territory; a blow of the paw is, when all's said and done, a blow of
the paw--something to numb the wits of the wiliest mouse.

Considering Roddy, he believed it to be impossible to gauge the
limitations of that essentially British intelligence--something as
self-contained as a London flat. One thing only was certain: Roddy
didn't always think in terms of beef and Bass; he was nobody's facile
fool; he could make a shrewd inference as well as strike a shrewd blow.

Reviewing the scene in the restaurant, Lanyard felt measurably
warranted in assuming not only that Roddy was interested in De
Morbihan, but that the Frenchman was well aware of that interest. And
he resented sincerely his inability to feel as confident that the
Count, with his gossip about the Lone Wolf, had been merely seeking to
divert Roddy's interest to putatively larger game. It was just possible
that De Morbihan's identification of Lanyard with that mysterious
personage, at least by innuendo, had been unintentional. But somehow
Lanyard didn't believe it had.